Link
by StarKid McFly
Summary: Though Clary has pressured him time and time again, Simon Lewis just cannot come clean to his mother about being a vampire.   Clary and Simon heart-to-heart, JxC, IxS. One shot, Rated K


**This is a one-shot in which Clary and Simon discuss how Simon feels about telling his mom that he's a vamp, and why he has stalled it for so long.**

**I don't own the mortal instruments series or any of it's characters.**

**Enjoy =]**

"So when are you planning on coming out?"

"I'm sorry?" spluttered Simon, looking up from his Nintendo and over at Clary, dark eyes wide.

Clary looked up from her anime book. "I meant as a vampire," she said, rolling her green eyes with irritation.

"Oh."

They were sat in Simon's room alone, the dark green curtains ripped open as far as they would go, net curtains thrust violently apart so that the midday sun filled the entire cluttered room. Isabelle and Jace, who had decided that they were in dire need of a pick-me-up, were out getting coffee from a Downworlder stall down the road. They had assured the other two that this was the single best coffee that they would ever sample in the entire world, and when Simon had asked why they hadn't mentioned this while he himself could still enjoy the beverage, both had just smiled and made comments about his appearance, just to be helpful as usual.

Clary lay on her stomach on Simon's battered bed, flicking through one of her older graphic novels about a princess and a witch, her red Conversed feet swinging behind her head in such violent kicks, several times Simon had thought she was going to knock herself out.

Simon, meanwhile, sat slouched in his office chair, legs propped on the desk as he jammed his thumbs furiously on the ancient gray Gameboy Jace had discovered lying under his bed a few days ago.

"So when?" asked Clary, as if this was the sort of conversation you had anytime and had little more importance than a discussion about the weather.

"Hopefully never," he said indifferently. He groaned in frustration when Bart Simpson's health reached zero on the screen. "Blooming thing," he snapped. "I've died like, four times now."

"So you're just going to be human until she figures it out for herself?" Clary asked.

"Yep," Simon replied, popping the 'P'.

"Well, I think you're an idiot." Clary slammed the book shut and sat up.

"Thank you for that colorful insight. It's nice to know what the living think of me." He closed his Gameboy, placed it on the desk and put his feet on the carpet. "Mundanes aren't supposed to know, Clary," he sighed.

"'Mundanes aren't supposed to know, Clary,'" mimicked the redhead. "That sounds like a petty excuse for a fearless vampire." She clucked her tongue disparagingly.

"What do I do? Go up to her and say, 'Hey Mom, how's it going? Oh yeah, before I forget, I got killed the other week and now I'm a vampire. Want a cookie?'" He closed his eyes, feeling a little bit sick. His mom was going to hate him. Either hate him, or be scared of him. Or maybe lock him away to an institution. He knew which he'd rather.

"You have to tell her," she told him, forcing him to meet her jade gaze.

"No I don't," Simon responded flatly. "After all, _your_ mom never told _you_."

"That's because she was trying to protect me," Clary shot hotly. "In any case, look what happened. And don't say you'd be trying to protect _your_ mom by not telling _her_, because you could still end up draining her. It's horrible to be left in the dark."

Simon didn't say anything. When it came to arguing, Clary Fray always won. And it wasn't always because she was right. It was generally because she refused to acknowledge that anyone else might be able to argue a case back. She had a certain level of incompetence when it came to arguing that Simon and everyone else at high school didn't have the energy to deal with. She had met her match when she had met Jace.

But this time, Clary _was_ right. It sucked to be left in the dark, and Jocelyn going out of her way to turn out the switch where Clary was concerned had resulted in disaster and a very angry redhead.

"So, are you going to tell her now, or never?"

Simon remained silent, chewing his lip as he stared at the cabinet, brow furrowed.

"Well, if you don't tell her, I will," Clary snapped, and she stood up, ready to leave the room.

"Clary," Simon said, catching her arm and pulling her back with the newly acquired strength both of them were still getting used to.

"_What_, Simon?" she asked impatiently.

"I _will_ tell her," Simon promised, though his expression looked uneasy. "One day."

"One day when?"

"One day soon."

"One day this week, more like," Clary decided for him. "In fact, why delay it? Why not tell her now?"

"I..." He was running out of excuses.

"Yes?" she said tersely. "I'm waiting."

Simon just stared at her, his arm still gripping her wrist. Clary's eyebrows were raised, her green eyes wide as she waited to hear his excuse.

"I just can't," he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. The easiest sentence he had strung together since this conversation had been struck.

"Why?"

Simon really didn't want to talk about it. Clary looked so scarily like Jocelyn, he felt about five again when Clary had ditched the blame for the paint splattered carpet in her room on him. She had that look about her, the look of a mother waiting for the truth. Simon wanted to retract into himself.

He wasn't conscious that he had.

"Si?" Clary's voice was softer as she saw Simon's obvious discomfort. "What's wrong, Si?"

"You know when your mom was in hospital and you met Madeleine?" he said as a prompt. Clary's expression clouded and she nodded. "Well, you were cheerier when you knew you had a link. A link to your mother. A link to your mother recovering through the form of Madeleine Bellefleur." He looked at her meaningfully. She nodded, not really sure as to where the direction of this conversation was headed. "When Madeleine was killed, you must have felt like that link was lost," Simon said. "Am I right?"  
"Sure," Clary replied, her voice a little musty. "But Si-"

"Once I tell them," Simon continued, not waiting for her to finish, "once I tell Mom and Rebecca and Eric and co. that I'm a vampire, the link to my human life will be destroyed. I will be just a vampire. There will be no denying it."

Clary's stomach felt like it had been dropped from a great height. She stared at her best friend, unsure as to whether enfolding him in a hug would be appropriate or not. His expression was reasonably composed, except for the obvious distress in his dark eyes. His knees were drawn into his chin, arms wrapped tightly around them.

"They'll never look at me the same, either," Simon carried on. "There will always be something... a glimmer of fright, or hatred at what I have become. They'll want the old Simon back. Nerdy Simon with the glasses and the game consoles and the short ginger friend."

"You're still the same nerdy Simon," assured Clary, causing him to smile slightly. "Maybe you won't have to wear the glasses anymore, and you might be just a teensy bit hotter."

"Only a 'teensy' bit?"

"Maybe more than a teensy bit," Clary backtracked, though she knew Simon so well that despite his low mood, he was still taking the rip. "But other than that... you're exactly the same. Would you say that I wasn't human, or Maia, or Magnus? Okay, scratch Magnus, but you get the gist. What if it's not _what_ we are that makes us human? What if it's _who_ we are?" She paused, surprising herself by this philosophical judgment. "If you went around sucking the blood out of people just for the hell of it, because the lives of mortals are so much less important than your own existence, then I would then say that you were a monster, not a human being. But those mass murderers, the ones who massacre thousands of civilians, I'd say they were monsters too. Am I right?"

Simon nodded, a slightly bemused expression taking hold of his pale features.

"As it so happens, Simon Lewis is a very nice young man who would never dream of kicking kittens, never mind massacre. Simon Lewis may need to drink animal blood to survive, but his best friend, Clary Fray, has to eat the meat of the animals to survive as well." She was surprised how valid her argument was. By the looks of things, Simon did too. "Are you following me?" she clarified.

"Yeah," Simon nodded. "Continue."

"You like the smell of Jace's blood. I like the smell of Jace's lynx."

"That's a comparison I never thought my name would be in," Simon muttered.

Clary glowered at him. "You know what I mean." She rolled up the sleeves of her jumper to the points of her elbows before she continued. "Simon, you're as human as I am, as Luke is, as Jace and Alec and Isabelle and Maia…"

"You're not giving very good examples."

"In fact," Clary gelled over the point Simon had just made, "You're _more_ human than any of us, than all of us put together. You're so mundane that I and most people would never have dreamt of putting the name 'Simon' and the word 'vampire' into the same sentence. You got it?"

"I got it." Simon smile was small.

"And as for the 'short ginger', Lewis," Clary continued, narrowing her eyebrows at the description he had used earlier, "you had her until the moment you used her stunning good looks as an insult. If you ever say that again I'll..." She didn't know what. She'd meant it to be sarcastic and reasonably impressive, something Jace would fling at her. But none of his insults seemed appropriate as quite a lot that sprung to mind were sexual innuendos.

Simon laughed at her empty threat and looked up at her. "Still going to make me tell her?"

"I reckon she should know," Clary confessed, stooping to the height of the office chair and taking his hands. "I really do. But it's up to you when you tell her. I'm sure Jace would do it for you."

"Huh, Jace," snorted Simon. "If anything's going to scare her, it'll be him telling the good news."

"Well, you could always ask him," shrugged Clary. "And Isabelle will wait with you. And I can tell her about us awesome Shadowhunters while we're at it, yes?"

"Clary, she already thinks you're disturbed, what with the morbid anime and the insane imagination," Simon teased her. "Imagine what telling her you're part angel would do to her."

"It would ease off the shock of you being a bloodsucking leech," Clary tormented back. "And anyway, your mom's always said I'm a little angel. See my halo?"

"Watch it doesn't slip and choke you."

Clary hit him. Simon smiled, feeling a little better. He put his knees down and closed his eyes.

"Do you want a hug?" Clary asked him quietly, sensing that he was not quite restored to his usual Simon-mirth.

Simon nodded, eyes still closed, and he felt Clary's warm arms wrap themselves around his torso.

Nothing compared to a Clary hug. Apart from maybe a Mom hug.

The door burst open, and in came Jace and Isabelle, apparently arguing over something. Jace had in his hand a paper bag and a cardboard tray with three coffees in it.  
"I carried it all the way back," Jace was saying. "You can pay for it."

"Yeah, well _I_ killed that demon," Isabelle shot back, pulling her glossy black hair from its bun so that it fell around her like a long dark curtain. "I didn't see you rolling up your sleeves for that element of the journey."  
"_Yeah_, because I was carrying the _coffee_," Jace retorted, widening his eyes at her. "Duh, Isabelle."

He set down the paper bag on the table. Clary opened it and peered inside. "Sugar doughnuts?" she said a little skeptically.

"I like sugar doughnuts," Jace snapped, not looking at her. "If I hadn't been carrying four espressos in my hands, I'd have come and helped you, Isabelle. As it so happened, my hand was full."

"Your _right_ hand was full," corrected Isabelle. "You're left-handed. Besides, your feet weren't carrying anything. What was to stop you stomping on it?"

"I didn't want to get the doughnuts dirty."

"_Four_ coffees?" Clary asked, raising her eyebrows. There was only three in the cardboard tray, and they knew damn well that Simon couldn't actually drink it.

"We bought Mrs. Lewis one," explained Isabelle, and her eyes narrowed as she glowered at the boy in front of her, "but Jace here was so traumatized after that little experience that he had to have it." She turned to the other boy in the room. "Apologize to your mom for us."

"She doesn't need to know," Jace snapped, before sitting down on the bed. "Oh, vampire, I got you a snack."

"Will you _keep it down_?" hissed Simon, pointing at the floor. "Thin floorboards! Selective hearing! Death-trap for Simon!"

"You're already dead," shrugged Jace, but he was careful not to call Simon anything but his name.

"We got you a flask of blood," Isabelle told him, reaching into the paper bag and retrieving a thermos flask. "It cost me $3.80, so you better enjoy it."  
"So you're paying?" asked Jace trivially from inference of her previous comment, dodging Isabelle's arm as she moved to thwack him.

"Hey," Clary interrupted, addressing Jace and Isabelle, "Simon and I were kind of in the middle of a heart to heart. Would you mind going downstairs and talking to Mrs. Lewis for a while?"

Isabelle looked slightly offended that Simon was talking to Clary, but graciously stood up, and towed Jace along with her, muttering about how much he owed her in total as she went.

Once they were gone, Clary looked up at Simon. He wasn't that tall really, for a guy he was average. If Clary had been average for a girl, then she wouldn't have to look at his chin every time she wanted a conversation.

"Are you okay now?" she asked him. He grinned at her and nodded.

"I'm fine as," he assured her.

She smiled tightly at him. "Listen. We'll tell your mom together. We could ask my mom to help, if you like." It caused him to smile. That used to be the plan, get Jocelyn to come and lie Simon and Clary out of trouble with Mrs. Lewis. Clary, obviously thinking of the same thing, smiled. "Those were the days."

"Why can't life still be like that, hey?" Simon whispered, putting his arm around Clary. Clary felt her eyes prickle a little. _No. Don't cry._

"We'll tell her together," Clary said, squeezing Simon's hand.

"Just like how we broke it to her that I'd lost my Tamagotchi in first grade?" laughed Simon.

"Just like that." She moved towards the door and seized the handle when Simon called, "Oh, and Fray?"

She turned to face him, looking up into his pitch black eyes. "Yeessss?" she said, slurring the word.

His serious expression melted into a smile. "I'm damn hot."

Clary laughed and Simon grinned. "Course you are, Si," she told him. "I wouldn't think anything less."

**Did you enjoy it?**

**Thanks for reading :)**

**Rocky**

**x**


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